


A Promise Made of Smoke

by Nny



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, BAMF Natasha, Deaf Clint Barton, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 03:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12974832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: The Budapest is as battered a piece of space junk as Bucky has ever seen, for the couple minutes it takes for him before he looks a little closer. It’s hiding something special under the hood with intake valves like that, and he suspects that the inside is a warren of levels and corridors that carefully conceals how much room is nibbled out of them and set aside for something else. She’s been torn apart and fixed up so many times she’s a maze of welding and obtruding panels, and if they were stripped away – small charges maybe, rigged to blow – she could probably outrun anything in this ‘port and several others besides. Bucky whistles, low, and Barton sends him a proud sort of sideways grin.





	A Promise Made of Smoke

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Winterhawk Mood Board](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/344259) by spacefoxen. 



> Title from Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car by Iron & Wine
> 
> With enormous thanks to Dap for being a wonderful last minute beta, and to Fox for making such a beautiful inspiration!

Some of the sailors – those who’re born to it, raised in metal corridors and taught to read by starlight – they carry huge umbrellas with them if they’re ever forced planetside. They carry them, for the most part, tight against their chests, and it’s an easy way for those of a thieving disposition to pick their targets, ‘cos it takes one of their limbs out of commission and provides all the distractions an enterprising dock-rat could need. Bucky remembers feeling kinda sorry for them, once upon a time, for the way they were wide-eyed and helpless and not used to this bitch of a planet, but now his eyes are almost as jaded as the rest.

The reasons they carry them – the umbrellas, the paracielos - are pretty varied, from mistrust of solar shielding, through mistaken attempts to fit in, to fear of the impossible depth of sky. Any way it’s sliced they carry them ‘cos they’re scared, so the wide eyes aren’t so strange on the guy with the purple fabric tucked in close under his arm. It’s the _smile_ that’s strange, that’s out of place in the grease-smeared grav-port, but it looks right at home on his comfortably friendly face.

He’s wearing the kind of battered overalls that’re pretty standard at any ‘port, the sleeves tied around his waist and his stained shirt bearing a slogan in a language Bucky doesn’t know. He looks like any of the hundred other sailors that’ve put into port, but the smile keeps catching Bucky’s attention, wide and wondering and worn like a target. He’s clearly void-headed, sky-addled and ripe for the picking, and Bucky’s got a horrible feeling that this is the guy he’s been sent here to find.  

Starkport is the biggest on the planet, dock after dock stretching much further than it’s possible to see. There’re tiny personal dragonflies cuddled up close beside towering freighters, a couple rich-kid runners dwarfed by the cruiser that’s negotiating to land. Mostly, though, it’s full of workboats, ugly welding, and the awkward shapes of things that weren’t particularly designed for gravity.

All the spaces left over are brim-full of _people_.

Everyone’s got a different skin colour, a different way of walking, a different number of legs; one time he’d swear he saw a walking tree. Some people get funny about that kinda thing, but he’s always reasoned that the assholes he was fighting mostly had two legs just like him. Why start out hating someone before really giving them a chance to _prove_ they’re a bastard?

He weaves through the crowds, keeping a watch on his guy from a little way distant, trusting that the dusty-black all his clothes end up will keep him safe from discovery when placed alongside the siren-call of boundless blue above. The man’s walking through the port at a pace that shows he’s no clue what he’s doing, and you can practically see the comet-trails of outraged chaos as the dock-rats start to converge where he’s at.

Bucky considers waiting for confirmation. He ponders, for a moment, chaos-surfing just close enough to read if his flight-patch is from the _Budapest_ , but the moment’s lost with the flash of a knife. Bucky lunges forward past food stalls, past ‘port security in their Stark red and gold, and almost trips over himself when purple paracielo suddenly _moves_.

He’s _fast_. There’s a solidity to him that shouldn’t _be_ that fast, and Bucky’d peg him for a ‘droid if he weren’t already bleeding red from his arm. He snaps his hand out and grab the man’s wrist, his other hand moving in an easy open slap that must be harder than it looks; the improvised scrap-metal shank goes flying, spinning across the floor when it lands, at least three kids already in pursuit.

The fight is gaining notice, now, but the security officers pay little attention; so long as they’re not close to anyone’s ship, the dock-rats can deal with their own, up to and including disposal of bodies. This fight ain’t coming to that, in any case – it’s clear to anyone watching that purple paracielo’s just playing now, like a cat too well fed to do more’n taunt. He sends the man off with a boot to the backside, then wanders over to an unattended crate so he can poke at his arm, curse softly under his breath.

Bucky chews on his lip, indecisive, then figures even if it’s not the man he’s after he’s at least someone to stay on the right side of, so he wanders over with his hands in his pockets, stands just a little way off. The guy cocks his head at him, curious.

“Help you?”

See, if he’d’ve just spoken earlier, Bucky wouldn’t have misjudged so poorly. His accent’s lazy and a little drawling, sure, brought up somewhere the pace of life is slow, but there’s fierce intelligence in the blue eyes that glance up at Bucky, and an edge to his voice.

“Thought you could maybe use a hand,” he says, shuffling closer, carefully judged harmlessness in the lines of the posture he adopts; something tells him he’s not fooling anyone. He flicks his eyes from the shrewd grin to the guy’s arm, glancing down for the barest second to catch the lettering on his flight patch and letting out a breath when he sees he was right.

“You got a hand to spare?” the guy – probably Barton – says, absent, trying to aim a can of bandage at a spot he can’t see, and Bucky smirks, unable to resist.

“I’ve got a collection,” he says, and carefully takes the can in cold metal fingers, leans in close so he can seal every inch of the cut.

“Holy shit,” the guy says, ignores the still-drying bandage to twist around so he can get a look at Bucky’s hand. “That is – that can’t be Stark Tech, can it?”

Bucky snorts. “Not fuckin’ likely. Call it a souvenir, from the war. Present from Asgard, by way of the Hydra.”

Barton hisses in an audible breath, ‘cos the prison ship has been a thing of morbid fascination ever since it was hauled in at the end of the war. The law enforcement bodies of the central planets have torn it apart, speculated wildly and at length about the fate of the prisoners it swallowed, and for just twenty credits a month you can watch a vis-show that reimagines it with a fuckin’ love story, Bucky’s heard.

He shoots the guy a sideways sort of smile, leans in a little closer and takes a silent sort of delight in the way the guy’s eyes drop to his mouth.

“You’re Barton?” he says, and the guy’s instantly on edge. Anyone else, their hand would drop to their hip; this guy tenses and he reaches across his body to his shoulder, turning it into an awkward kinda clasp when Bucky spreads his hands wide and open.

“Who wants to know?” he asks.

“Bucky Barnes,” he says. “I heard you – move things. I’ve got something needs moving.”

“Yeah?” Barton looks at him narrowly. “And what’s that?”

“Me,” Bucky says. 

The _Budapest_ is as battered a piece of space junk as Bucky has ever seen, for the couple minutes it takes for him before he looks a little closer. It’s hiding something special under the hood with intake valves like that, and he suspects that the inside is a warren of levels and corridors that carefully conceals how much room is nibbled out of them and set aside for something else. She’s been torn apart and fixed up so many times she’s a maze of welding and obtruding panels, and if they were stripped away – small charges maybe, rigged to blow – she could probably outrun anything in this ‘port and several others besides. Bucky whistles, low, and Barton sends him a proud sort of sideways grin.

“You the pilot?” Bucky asks, and Barton laughs.

“I’m… _also_ the pilot. Sometimes. Under supervision. Mostly I’m the muscle.”

“Mostly you’re the furniture,” a voice cuts in, and Bucky looks around to see a woman regarding him thoughtfully. She’s small and slender and beautiful and redheaded, and Bucky gets the feeling somehow that not one of those is quite true. She holds out a hand and he notes the strength of her grip.

“Natasha Romanov,” she says, and he offers his name in turn. “And you need something moving,” she says, and he nods, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

“Me,” he says. “Mostly me. A little luggage.”

“A little luggage for which you don’t wish to pay duties, perhaps,” she says, low enough that only he could possibly hear. “A little luggage that doesn’t have your name on the label?”

“It’s stolen,” he says bluntly. “I’m returning it.”

Natasha regards him for a moment, eyes narrowed, head tilted.

“And what do you think about this whole Captain Rogers thing?” she asks, finally, out of nowhere.

It’s all anyone has been talking about in the ‘port for weeks: the war hero who’d been lost in a cryo-pod in deep space for five years, the accidental discovery, the triumphant awakening. He’s been on all the vis-screens, looking tired and overwhelmed and wide-eyed and a little sick, and Bucky hates looking at him like that.

“I think it’s bullshit,” he snaps. “Everyone’s got a way to make a profit off the poor guy, everyone’s deciding they’ve always been his best goddamn friend, and you can see all he wants is to be left alone.”

With his sketchbooks, most likely. Curled up in his bunk with graphite on his fingers and a tiny smile on his face. That’s the Cap no one seems to remember except Bucky. Except his best goddamn friend.

Natasha’s expression has changed slightly, although he couldn’t possibly say what from, or what to. She turns without a word and walks up the gangplank, and Barton follows her, grabbing Bucky’s shoulder and tugging him forward a little as he goes.

“You coming?” he says.

By the time the luggage is discovered missing, looping video and broken glass, by the time Stark’s security have been barked at and directed and sent, the _Budapest’s_ already deep in the black.

 

-

 

It’s one of those curious brainteasers that no one quite knows the answer to: which came first, the chicken or the egg? What is the sound of one hand clapping? Do robots actually _think_?

It’s further complicated when you work for Tony Stark, even if you’re just a lowly janitor, pushing a mop and idly picking up access codes through the hair that hangs over your face. None of the commentators can ever seem to decide whether Tony’s robots are overwhelmingly proof for or against the whole robot question, ‘cos sometimes it seems like they’re thinking, but overwhelmingly what they’re thinking is _dumb_. If it weren’t for JARVIS –

JARVIS had almost seemed grateful, is the thing. Like he was hoping Bucky’d be successful, even if he couldn’t help him directly. Like Bucky was doing him a favour by breaking in carefully and quietly, by causing no fuss, by ensuring Stark wouldn’t be sitting and obsessing ‘cos the object of his obsession wasn’t there anymore.

Bucky believes that robots can think. Bucky knows for certain that they can hold conversations. He’s not sure yet if the damn things can lie, but he’s hoping like hell that they can keep secrets…

It felt like Bucky held his breath all the way back to the ‘port, gathering together his meagre possessions, his fair amount of savings, and setting out lookin’ for a purple paracielo.

 

-

 

Clint – ‘cos apparently Barton is a Clinton Francis, and honestly Bucky thought _he_ had it bad – stows his purple umbrella on hooks under an empty top bunk. Turns out he likes bein’ mistaken for a know-nothing rube, partly for the exercise he gets when he beats on dock-rats, and partly ‘cos it’s amazing how much people’ll tell you when they think you’re an idiot.

“Think?” Bucky says, and Clint gives him a wide, goofy grin.

The tour is perfunctory and quickly done: head, mess, the aforementioned top bunk. Bucky stows his luggage, makes sure to get caught slyly checking his pockets, like that’s the size of the thing he’s stolen, like that’s where he’s chosen to keep it. Clint disappears after that, and Bucky twiddles his thumbs for all of a hot second before he heads for the bridge and the redhead who reigns there.

“No,” Natasha says, when he taps lightly on the frame of the entrance hatch.

“Huh,” he says, eyebrows raised, and she turns a little. She’s got her legs crossed on the control panel, hands laced over her stomach, and she sends him a cool look.

“No, I will not be charmed by your little smiles and pretty hair,” she says, and her accent is about as bland as it gets but something in her speech patterns suggests that it’s a careful thing. “No, you cannot talk to me, banter with me, wear me down. No, I am not interested in your opinion on my flight skills, captaincy, or physique. No, you cannot sit.” She turns back again, resumes her watch over the depth of space, dismissing him.

“I figured I could help,” he says, and she snorts.

“Doubtful. You should find Clint in the hold, perhaps; he’s more likely to be impressed.”

Bucky clatters more than he needs on the gratings and stairs, and he doesn’t think it’s any sort of coincidence that he finds Clint harmlessly close to the door, hauling crates from one side of the hold to the other. And yeah, there’s a moment’s mental stumble as Bucky takes in the sleeveless shirt Clint’s pulled on, the way it shows off a pair of arms that dry out Bucky’s mouth; it’s not what he needs, not now, but it’s been – shit, it’s been a long time, and a long time before that since it was more than quick hands and mouths in darkness and narrow quarters. What Bucky really needs, right now, is a long and leisurely fuck, and the likelihood he’s gonna get that on this boat is vanishing small.

He grabs a crate, instead, waits for Clint to show him where to put it, preens a little at the look Clint shoots him when he rolls up the sleeves of his shirt.

Mostly the cargo – the part of the cargo that Bucky can see, ‘cos he’s got no doubt in his mind that this boat is holding its secrets close – seems to be protein supplements, vitamin pills, water filters, all the everyday stuff that the outer colonies seem to need.

“Why the central planets?” he asks, eventually. “Natasha said that was where you’re going, and I can’t pay you more than we agreed if you’re making the trip just for me.”

“Client,” Clint grunts, bending to start a new stack of crates; Bucky makes no secret of the fact that he’s staring at the guy’s ass.

“Pick up?” Bucky asks, idle, and Clint looks a little shifty for a second.

“Drop off,” he says. “Making sure something gets where it’s going.” The choice of words is odd. Bucky’s not so sure he likes it.

Clint’s quiet after that, and they fall into a rhythm, lifting and stacking and clearing a little more floor space. As the far wall gradually becomes visible Bucky frowns and squints, then walks over for a closer look at the markings that’ve been chalked there. It’s not like they’re unfamiliar, concentric circles and numbers making it pretty obvious what their purpose is, but instead of laser burns there’re regular dents in the metal that Bucky doesn’t recognise. He fingers them, curious, and Clint joins him and laughs.

“Want me to teach you to shoot?” he says, and Bucky looks at him sidelong.

“I was a _sniper_ ,” he says. “You think you can teach me anything about guns?”

Clint snorts, dismissive. “I wasn’t talking about guns.”

He reaches up to the top of a stack of crates and pulls out something outta storybooks, beautiful curve of wood he has to step on to string, and Bucky – even with the metal, he can’t go near drawing it.

“Shit,” he says, and repeats the sentiment in an unsteadily lost breath when Clint stands sidelong, tensed and drawn, the focus in his eyes something strange and beautiful to see.

And Bucky’s a sniper so he knows that it’s good, even before he sees the arrow quivering in the wall there, dead centre. Something with magnets, Clint tells him, something in the arrow heads, and the dents aren’t actually supposed to happen.

“You some kinda cyborg?” Bucky asks, half joking and honestly half-way awed, and Clint ducks his head and grins.

 

-

 

Bucky doesn’t know when the idea first occurred to him – maybe even from the first time he saw Steve blinking and wincing with no defence against the cameras’ flashes, like he needed something there with him, like Bucky could give him something he needed. It all seemed to fall together a little too easily, though, a little too smooth. He’s never been known for his cool-headed planning, and standing in front of the glass case it’s mounted in, the shield looking a little unreal projected under direct sizzling-white light, it feels like something’s got to go wrong.

But it’s an impossibility of perfect, from the first moment to the last, and JARVIS’ soft voice – _fifty seconds, Mr Barnes_ – feels like it’s giving some kinda blessing.

So when the card reader flashes red – again, and again – he feels almost disbelieving. He feels somehow _betrayed_.

“One second,” a voice says over the PA system, harried and hurried and strangely familiar, “just give me – one – go, go!”

The card reader flashes green and Bucky shoves the door open and runs for it, making it into the supply closet bare inches before a security team ambles past. From there it’s smooth sailing again, planned to perfection and perfectly easy, and Bucky’d feel better about it if he hadn’t sworn, for a second, that the helpful voice was _Stark_.

 

-

 

Clint snores like a faulty intake valve and takes a whole hour to wake up in the mornings, a little (a very little) less if there’s caff. Bucky takes to vaulting off his bunk in the mornings, landing on metal with both feet flat and getting as little response as if he’s dust falling. The dark smell of caff, though, that’d likely wake Clint from the dead, and he gets used to turning around from the mess counter to find Clint propped up sleepily in the doorway, scratching idly at his belly as he yawns.

He’s no good for conversation until he’s dressed, doesn’t even seem to register that Bucky’s talking, never gives more response than a wide-mouthed grateful grin. So that’s the time that Bucky starts feeling Natasha out a little, before she’s quite frozen herself solid, still sleep-warm and a little more likely to talk. He figures he’s giving far more than he’s getting, but aside from the whole crime aspect – and aside from the _Hydra_ – he hasn’t really got so much to hide.

The first time he makes her smile he almost chokes on his supplements, taken aback at the mischief on her face. Clint blinks at her, something soft in his eyes, and leans over to cup her cheek for a second, brushing his thumb against the corner of her mouth. She leans into the pressure for the barest fraction of a moment and then puts him in a headlock until he cries uncle, laughing fit to burst and with his hair looking like an electric shock.

“She’s beautiful, huh?” Clint says as he passes Bucky on the way through the doorway, and there’s something a little uncomfortable in Bucky’s chest but he can’t help but agree.

There’s a routine to it, a sort of comfort. Bucky thought it’d be the endless travel that’d get to him, the featureless expanse of black, but Clint’s teaching him to shoot, and then Bucky teaches Clint the ancient art of basketball, and the first scheduled stop comes before he knows it.

It’s a small settlement they put down by, more windows than glass and more canvas than wood. Bucky helps Clint unload a few of the crates, and the settlement acts like it’s a holiday, smiles on every face and everyone moving like it’s a dance. He catches glimpses of Natasha, speaking in low tones with some kinda matriarch, but even though he’s watching for it he doesn’t see her get paid. A few of the crates are a little heavier than the rest, unnaturally shallow, and Clint grins across one at Bucky when he pointedly doesn’t comment. His smile is like the sun. Bucky basks.

Once the crates are all pried open and emptied, once they’re folded down and stowed back on board, Bucky checks in for their departure time and then grabs a pack with his luggage and protein and water and heads off into the woods. It’s peaceful out there, quiet in a way Clint’s somehow trained him out of, and Bucky – Bucky honestly thought he’d enjoy it more. He finds himself twitching at rustling in the undergrowth, finds he keeps turning to share his thoughts, and while the exercise – spinning and throwing, calculating and catching – feels pretty damn good, he finds himself hurrying his steps a little to get back to the boat.

“Clint’s not with you?” Natasha says when he jogs up the gangplank, pink-cheeked and panting.

“Clint was supposed to be with me?” he asks, and Natasha looks flustered, just for the barest of seconds.

“You disappeared at the same time,” she says. “I assumed.”

And that, paired with the hint of a flush on her cheekbones, that is all kinds of interesting, and Bucky puts it away to examine later. For now, he pulls up the cargo bay’s HUD and checks the local time, breathing a little easier when he sees that Clint hasn’t missed check in, not yet.

“He’s not late,” he shrugs, and Natasha glares at him.

“But he’s hopeless,” she replies, “and I’m not sure I trust him to get back on his own.”

“Not sure he’d thank you for that.”

She snorts. “Perhaps he would not, but he’d thank me for rescuing him from a sinkhole, or an angry village, or a ravenous beastling, or an aggressive plant.”

There’s so much to question in that.

“A whole village?” he says, after a moment.

“More than once,” she sighs. “Do not leave the ship,” she says, after a moment. “I will complete pre-flight; if he has not returned by the time I am done I will pull out his heart through his nostrils.”

It’s a good threat, disconcertingly specific, and Bucky can’t help that he backs off a step as she storms past.

The night outside the ship is fading into half-light, grainy with the greyness, strange darting shapes taking Bucky off guard and holding him tenser than he’d like to be. He’s planet-born and planet-raised, and it’s the first time ever he hasn’t quite felt like it, has longed for the certainty of black barely dusted with distant stars.

Something crunches in the distance, heavy and uneven, and Bucky slides out of the pool of light from the gangplank, feeling too visible and vulnerable against the dark. He squints and breathes silently, wishes suddenly and viscerally for the comforting weight of his blaster to protect him against the night.

“He’s here,” Bucky yells, catching sight of familiar blond head amongst the shadows with a truly disproportionate sense of relief.

“Tell him I’m gonna kill him,” Natasha calls back, her voice almost lost in the clatter of Clint’s feet up the gangplank. He’s limping a little, and covered in mud and tangled vegetation, and Bucky shoves him straight towards the decontamination shower – which, on this boat, is only a little more advanced than a bucket and a piece of string. Clint’s doing that thing again where he grins like he’s stupid, his arms clutched tight around his middle, and he resists pretty hard when Bucky tries to haul off his coat.

“The hell?” Bucky says, and Clint responds urgently.

“You promise not to tell?”

“…did you get shot?” Bucky asks, dubious, ‘cos Clint looks like the type who’d get shot and try to lie about it, he’s got that edge of careless in the corners of his smile.

“I didn’t –“ Clint slaps Bucky’s hands away and something under his coat wriggles, and Bucky backs off quickly with the instinctive horror of a ‘port dweller for anything undocumented and _alive_. “I didn’t get _shot_ ,” Clint says, offended, like the guess is anywhere near unreasonable. “I got a _pet_.”

“Holy _shit_ ,” Bucky says, “that is _so much worse.”_

“Not if Nat doesn’t find out,” Clint says, reasonably, and then he’s unfastening his coat and pulling out something with four legs and a tail, something small and wriggling and _covered in hair_.

Bucky backs off further, grabs a spare set of thick gloves that’ve been tossed onto the top of a crate and hauls them on before he grabs Clint under the armpit and hustles him uncompromisingly towards the shower.

“That thing is getting in there with you,” Bucky says, and Clint hauls the creature a little closer to his chest.

“That _thing_ is called Lucky,” he says, “’cos he helped me out when I got –“

His effort to swallow the words is futile, a little too late, and he sighs at Bucky’s expression and gets back to limping towards the shower.

“Okay, so I got shot a _little,_ ” he says. “It was a catapult, anyway. It barely even counts.”

The furball’s less unnerving when it’s clean, turns out. The dog – Bucky’s assuming it’s a dog, ‘cos  planet-born folk seem to think half of everything’s a dog – is small and sturdy and the same sort of sandy blond as Clint, and so far it’s done nothing more threatening than yawn, curl up, and fall asleep in Clint’s lap. Clint keeps staring down at it with a besotted sort of grin, and Bucky is beginning to hate whatever it is that keeps squirming in his stomach at every curl of Clint’s lips.

“You know she’s gonna find out,” he says. He’s known Natasha for all of a week and he’s developed a healthy respect and a perfectly reasonable fear, and if she doesn’t know Clint’s done something stupid already it’s only ‘cos she’s single-handedly launching a goddamn spaceship.

“I know it,” says Clint, and he cradles the top of the dog’s head gently in his palm. “But if we’re already out in the black I’ve got a little time to convince her to let me keep him.” He looks up and smiles, directly at Bucky, this particular expression a little rueful, a little resigned. It’s not fair, not an inch of it, and Bucky lets out a huff of annoyed air and slumps down a little, folding his arms across his chest.

“I’m not helpin’ you hide it,” he says, and Clint Barton’s smiles are going to be the death of him, just wait.

The addition of Lucky to the Budapest’s nominal crew’d be fine but for one thing. Not Natasha – Natasha pretends she hasn’t noticed him, even when he’s galumphing around her feet and trying to chew on her boot buckles. Not the mess, either, although discovering that through skidding in it is getting old fast.

The addition of Lucky’d be no kind of issue if it weren’t for the smiles he pulls outta Clint, hopeless and helpless and happiest. They curl up together and fall asleep in corners for Bucky to trip over, almost literally, his heart doing something unhelpful in his throat. They wrestle in the bunk room, Lucky’s tiny teeth snagging on Clint’s overalls and hauling them down, exposing the pale skin at the small of his back, and Bucky’s not sure what jerking off so often’s gonna do to the plumbing on this barely-working boat, but he’s certain as hell that it’s a conversation with Natasha he never _ever_ wants to have.

And just for that Bucky’d think about booting him out of an airlock, or finding some asteroid for the little furball to chase, but he’s held back by the way he’s woken a little less often now by Clint’s whimpering, his poorly pieced together rest.

He’s kinda figured that Clint’s just been too polite to mention it, so far. The fact that they’re both broken somehow, their edges too jagged for the smoothness of sleep. He figured they were both being polite, but the first time he hauls himself off his bunk to find Clint curled tight around Lucky, his eyes reflecting the bare light from the gangway, he’s certain Clint’s mouth falls a little open in surprise.  

It becomes… routine. Screaming himself awake has been routine ever since the end of the war, but before this he’s never had someone to talk to, after.

Clint has claimed the little cubby that should be for the navigator Natasha doesn’t need, filled it full of half-finished projects and discarded parts and a bundle of clothes piled into a pet bed, poorly hidden under a desk. More nights than not, when Bucky quits hollering, the gentle red light in there is on. It’s not a room built for two, let alone two and a hairball to boot, but somehow they fit into it together and cram all their bad memories in as well.

Clint’s got some kinda engine-brewed rotgut for the especially bad nights. For the nights where sleep has gone wandering and every corner-shadow’s a threat, and the only thing that works is the kinda courage that’s served from a bottle. It’s one of those nights the first time Clint asks about the arm, slumped in the corner with his knees drawn up, a gentle sway to him like water, like waves.

“I fucked up,” Bucky says, and it’s the truest thing to ever come out his mouth. “I let ‘em down. Fixing some goddamn non-essential on the hull and got scooped up like bait-fish. Woke up in a med-bay that’d forgotten how to fix people – they only wanted it for the tools.”

Clint’s wince tells him he knows what that is, that Bucky doesn’t have to say any more, but the moonshine’s turned his tongue silver and he’s forgotten how to stop.

“I think they didn’t mean to –“ he gestures with his metal arm, a lopsided shrug. “I think they didn’t want to be done with me so quick. Pretty sure they thought I’d die from it, ‘cos _I_ sure as hell did, and then they tossed me in a tank and forgot about me until I was worth something.”

“Which was when?” Clint asks softly.

“I dunno. Time is a sane man’s concept,” Bucky says, and giggles a little around another mouthful of alcohol. “This was near the end of the war, maybe helped it a little on its way, ‘cos Steve’s a goddamn child and no one else gets to take his things.”

“Steve Rogers?” Clint asks, and Bucky grimaces at the faintest touch of awe.

“Steven Grant Rogers,” Bucky says, and laughs again. “Size of your little furball and just as scrappy for years, then boom, late puberty hits. ‘slike, like a new man.” He rubs the back of his hand absently across his eyes, tryin’ to stop the itching there. “He wouldn’t’ve left me that long, not if he’d been around, but I guess the victors got around to mop-up eventually. They swapped me for something – parts, I think – and dumped me in Stark’s port with the clothes on my back.”

“Handful of credits for me,” Clint says, and when Bucky raises an eyebrow he pulls something small and purple out of his ear. “Retirement plan was these things and a few credits, after they screwed my hearing with long shifts and shitty mufflers. I bought onto Tasha’s boat and she hasn’t managed to scrape me off yet.”

It makes sense all of a sudden, the morning silences, the ignorance of Bucky’s bad dreams. He feels somehow like an idiot and resentful at the same time, like this should be something he knows – like he deserves, somehow, to know every inch of Clint, and he laughs a little into the fragile skin on the inside of his elbow at how far he’s let himself fall.

“You weren’t sick of it all by the war’s end?” Bucky asks. “Didn’t wanna put your credits towards somewhere planetside that’s all full of things on four legs?”

“Not me,” Clint says, staring down into his beaker like he’s lost something in there. “I’m – planetside makes me itchy.” He shudders, shakes out his shoulders like it’s nothing close to exaggeration.

Bucky stares at him for a moment. Clint catches him looking and smiles, slow like sunrise, and it’s nothing Bucky ever thought he was looking for.

“I never thought I’d make a life in the black,” Bucky says, and tosses back whatever dregs he’s got left. Clint’s got lost somewhere in the bottom of his beaker, and Bucky nudges his own against it, their knuckles brushing, and Clint startles a little and then helpfully fills him back up. Bucky toasts him and takes a sip that settles warm and wide and spreading in his stomach.

“But this,” he says, after a couple more warm moments. “I like this.”

Bucky wakes up feeling a little like Lucky’s been rolling around on his tongue. He’s sore and warm and maybe a little sick, and it takes a second for physical sensation to register – his full bladder, the arm draped across his side. He has to deal with the one before he can think about the other, so he carefully eases his way out and staggers to the head, relieving himself and chewing on a little tooth powder before he wobbles his way back, stands in the doorway for a minute considering what action is best.

He’s a little amazed they even managed to fit in the same bunk together, since neither one of them’s small, but when Clint doesn’t hesitate to flip back the blankets and hold up his arm,  Bucky doesn’t hesitate to shuffle himself back in there, warm and close and right. They’re both too sleepy for it to feel anything like strange, and Bucky only protests a little when Clint’s hand passes gently back and forth over his belly, ‘cos he thinks it’s important that all parties remember that he’s not Barton’s goddamn dog.

It feels a little different when he wakes up again, Clint’s hand low and lax against his stomach, and he weighs up the complications of hitching into it a little, tilting his head so his neck’s bare for Clint’s mouth. The stupid thing about it is he would, without hesitation, if he didn’t _like_ Clint so much. A clumsy handjob doesn’t feel like it’d come to much weighed against the clumsy stumble of Clint against him when they’re jostling for a ball, and if Bucky’d rather lose the chance at the former than definitely lose the latter, then there’s no one awake in the dark with him to tell.

Clint’s arm tightens when he slowly wakes up, pulling Bucky back against a most definitely interested dick, and it’s interesting that he doesn’t pull away when he wakes a little more. He smiles, instead – Bucky can feel it against the skin of his neck – and breathes out a stale-stinkin’ good morning before clambering over him, all knees and elbows, and shuffling off to the head.

The smell of caff, the prancing dog at his feet, and Clint leaning in the doorway at least half asleep; it’s all just the same as it ever has been before, but the hand on Bucky’s hip as Clint leans past him for a mug, that’s worth a smile ‘cos it’s something entirely new.

 

-

 

Stark should be more impressive. He certainly shouldn’t be making time, Bucky thought, to be interviewing for a _janitor_ , shouldn’t have invited him into his workshop, be tinkering with something that looks expensive even as they speak.

“Vet?” he says, sympathetic, and Bucky holds up his metal hand and shrugs a little, and that’s where the interview’s always ended before. Stark, though, he leans in with bright eyes, fascinated and clearly only just holding himself back. They talk range of motion and morning stiffness, which feelings register as pressure and which as pain, and it’s almost a surprise when Stark leans back in his chair and says, “so, you’ll start Monday?” like that’d been what they’d been talking about all along.

“Thanks,” Bucky says, and Stark picks up whatever he’s been fiddling with again.

“Not a problem James,” he says. “Jimmy? What’m I supposed to call you?”

“Bucky,” he says, “I prefer Bucky,” and Stark smiles a little secretive smile, like that was something he already knew.

 

-

 

Honestly, he hadn’t thought this far.

Planetside, this hemisphere, is fuckin’ cold. Clint is scowling out from under some kinda furry hat, planting his feet and looking like he’s not going any further, and Bucky can’t blame him. Natasha’s wrapped in at least twice her body weight in fur, and she’s talking to the ‘port controller, asking something that involves smiling; the poor man looks terrified.

“So I guess, uh,” Bucky says, and Clint’s scowl deepens as Bucky palms the back of his own neck, freezing metal curled and burning like goodbye against his skin. “I guess this is it, then?”

“We haven’t got you where you’re going, yet,” Clint says, abrupt and annoyed.

“Would help if I knew where that was,” Bucky answers, ‘cos this – this is as far as the plan goes. He’s on the same planet as Steve Rogers, same landmass most likely; he figured he’d see if he could find a camera crew to follow, since it’s not like they seem to wanna talk about anything else.

“What do you think Natasha’s doing?” Clint says, and he lets out an exasperated huff of curling smoke when Bucky mimes incomprehension. “You think we’re just gonna abandon crew like that?”

“Crew?” Bucky repeats, and it’s Clint’s turn to rub the back of his neck, scowling at the floor like it’s done him wrong.

“You know,” he says, “if you want.”

“If I _want?_ ” Bucky says, and it’s uneven enough that Clint flickers a glance up at him, and Bucky has no clue what he’s seeing on his face. “Clint, you gotta know –“

“He’s here,” Natasha cuts across him, the ‘port controller staring after her with a dazed expression. “Rogers is opening some kind of ‘port extension today, there will be questions and most likely autographs, we can join the simpering crowd in the main building.” She eyes Bucky’s gobsmacked expression and rolls her eyes, exasperated. “Of course we knew who you were looking for,” she says. “We were paid to ensure you reached it.”

“By – someone else,” Bucky says. “You were paid to make sure I got here safe.”

“We were paid to make sure you got here,” she says, and she taps a cold leather glove against his cheek. “You were safe because you are crew.”

Bucky’s thoughts are whirling right along with the falling snow as they stalk across the open space to the main hangar. He feels like he ought to be feeling betrayed – _someone_ has been manipulating him, pulling him this way and that – but any bitterness is eased by the word ‘crew’ and the way Clint had looked as he’d said it. Like ‘crew’ means something like ‘family’, like ‘family’ means something like the feeling that settles into Bucky’s stomach every time he sees Clint’s goddamn smile.

He’s not quite paying attention to the bustle, the noise that surrounds him as Natasha nudges him where she wants him to go. And then suddenly Steve’s there, inches away from him, mouth curved into a strained smile that’s so _tired_ at the edges, and Steve’s name slips out his mouth without him meaning to say it, croaking and uncertain, and his second favourite pair of beautiful blue eyes snap up to meet his, a whole world of wonder inside of ‘em.

“…Buck?” Steve says, faintly, and Bucky hunches his shoulders and fumbles in his pack, pulling out a small metal cuff from the bottom of it and holding it out to Rogers.

“I brought it back,” he says. “The shield generator. I figured you’d want it back.”

Steve closes his mouth, clenches his jaw, knocks Bucky’s hand aside, and Bucky braces himself for a punch but finds himself hauled into Steve’s chest, instead. Tugged in tight enough that he can barely breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he can hear his voice faltering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I lost you, fuck, Steve –“

“Hey,” Steve says, low and fierce, “hey, I knew you’d come back. ‘til the end of the line, right?”

Bucky snorts wetly into his shoulder and he kinda hopes the media ain’t catching this, although they’re not likely to miss anything to do with the war’s golden boy. And then a hand claps him on the shoulder and a media-friendly voice greets him, all three names, rank and all, and he looks up through his hair into a pair of mischievous brown eyes that he last saw across a pile of scrap metal, a smile curving that iconic goatee out of its perfect lines.

 

Clint’s up high when Bucky finds him. He’s found himself a balcony and is balanced on the railings, feet dangling over the drop. He’s looking down, storeys and storeys of windows and skimmers and neon and walkways, so far you can’t even see the ground. Maybe he’s pretending it ain’t there. He’s sure as hell regretting _something_ , anyway, his face drawn into tight lines, and Bucky can feel the tension in his stomach.

“You’re not gonna take advantage of the free food?” he asks.

“Nah,” Clint says, and pulls on a smile that doesn’t even go close to his eyes. “Nah, planetside, y’know. I figured we should – we should head out. I –“

Whatever he was gonna say he stumbles over it, falling silent and rubbing the back of his neck.

“It’s great,” he says, swinging himself around and pushing to his feet, and he’s still the worst liar Bucky has ever seen. “It’s great you guys found each other again.” And then, honest, and earnest, and so fuckin’ sad, “I’m glad you’re happy.”

He turns to walk away and Bucky gapes at him for a second before grabbing at his arm.

“What the fuck?” he asks, angry and confused and pretty goddamn convinced that Clint is an idiot. “What the hell happened to me being crew, huh? What happened to - ” he doesn’t have words for it so he just gestures, emphatic, between them.

Clint winces a little, palms the back of his neck.

“I just – I figured he had the prior claim.”

“I – yeah, I mean, I’ve gotta stay with him,” he says, and Clint’s face goes the kind of blank that’s like still waters, and Bucky finishes quick and a little pissed, “he’s my _brother_.”

“But – I thought you wanted –“

Bucky pulls Clint in, implacable, fingers firm around his arm. He steps right in close, closer, closest, like they’re back in a one-man bunk and the rest of the world’s gone away.

“I know what I want,” Bucky says, low and intimate, Clint’s breath warm against his mouth, “and apparently he’s some kinda dumb asshole.”

“Dumb asshole who wishes he could stay,” Clint says, and Bucky laughs against his mouth because Clint is a stupid, self-sacrificing idiot and Bucky’s pretty sure he’s falling in love.

“Not if I got anything to do with it,” he says, and pushes in the last couple inches so he can fill his mouth with kisses, with the strange metallic ship-board taste of caff and Clint.  Bucky noses along Clint’s jaw, biting kisses to mark his route, and leans in close to whisper into his ear.

“Wanna help me kidnap Captain America?” he says.


End file.
